What We’re Reading: November 2 World Series Edition

We’ve barely recovered from last night’s game, but suffice it to say, the 2017 World Series may be the greatest of all time. This series, fans were treated to seven full games of some of the most entertaining and record-breaking baseball. While we could spend hours dissecting every aspect, here are a few of our favorite reads on the series.

The Houston Astros are the World Series champions for the first time in the franchise’s 56-year history after winning the first-ever Game 7 in Dodger Stadium. Houston took a commanding 5-0 lead through the second inning – a strong sign given a five run deficit has never been reversed in a winner-take-all game. Crucial to Houston’s win was MVP George Springer, who is the first player to hit a home run in four straight games of the World Series.

At times, fans may have thought they were watching the home run derby instead of the World Series. Slick baseballs have been the talk of the town as the Dodgers and Astros broke the record for home runs in not only the World Series, but in an entire postseason… after five games. Through Game 5, the rate of at-bats per home run was 15.8, compared to the World Series average of 34.8. Is there a conspiracy at hand? Perhaps not – Rob Arthur of FiveThirtyEight debunks the major juiced baseball theories.

Another rarity in the world of sports – Game 5 drew higher ratings than the NFL’s Sunday Night matchup of the Steelers and Lions. The 10-inning game brought in overnight rankings of 12.8, versus 9.4 from the NFL. This high level of ratings may be indicative of a trend – while ratings for Game 5 of last year’s series was 16% higher than this year’s, ratings for Game 5 of the 2017 series were 9% higher than the same game of 2015, and 56% higher than 2014.

November 1st was the third time in history that the fate of two 100-win teams was decided in the 7th game, and the 39th time it took seven games to decide the series. Interestingly, the road team was victorious 19 of the prior 38 times, two of which happened in the last three Octobers. Last night moves that statistic to 20 road team victories in 39 Game 7 matchups.

Lastly, a special shout out to Sports Illustrated’s June 2014 cover, in which they predicted that the Astros would win the 2017 World Series. Now that the world has discovered SI’s magic crystal ball, we are eager to see who they will crown as champions next.